What do you think?
Rate this book
Chicago Lives
Hog Butcher
Two young black boys are shaken from their world of play when they witness a murder in a Chicago ghetto
- GenresFiction
182 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1966
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 13, 2025
Yes, this was later adapted into Cornbread, Earl & Me. That is someone else's entire fucking review. Thanks?
Let's use that asshole's review as a jumping-off point. He doesn't say whether Hog Butcher having a film adaption is a good or bad thing. Let's see: it's the film debut, one year before Apocalypse Now would begin production, of Laurence Fishburne. Fun fact: he started filming Apocalypse in 1976, the same year the concerned was released. He was 14, having lied about his age to get the gig. But here's the kicker: he was 17 (!) by the time Coppola wrapped production. That's a helluva latter adolescence, what, hanging out with those dudes and running around the Philippines. Less known: Fishburne worked as a bouncer at punk and alternative clubs like Cathay de Grande, Anti-Club, and Mabuhay Gardens (my young environs) AFTER playing Mr. Clean in likely the best war movie ever made. Point? Fishburne rules. Oh, the whole movie is soundtracked by Donald Byrd and the Blackbyrds and just funks the shit out of what is a very heavy storyline. The album cover is an all-timer (the lawyer in the movie also played the lead in the off-Broadway production of no-less than goddamn Genet's The Blacks; is this subtext getting clearer to you??)
Primary difference between the novel and the movie, beyond all of the above (which is interesting but anecdotal bullshit I keep handy for business luncheons and funerals), is there is far less basketball in the novel. This is a good thing. Hog Butcher is tuned to an open chord of loss, tragedy, and just plain sadness the movie, any movie, can't hope to capture. This is a better thing. Resolution feels good walking out of a theater, the Blackbyrds soundtracking your mightily judicious strut. Hog Butcher ends with something far more affective: the barely audible and fading sound of something once beautiful being swallowed into silence.
Get hip: pick up both.
Let's use that asshole's review as a jumping-off point. He doesn't say whether Hog Butcher having a film adaption is a good or bad thing. Let's see: it's the film debut, one year before Apocalypse Now would begin production, of Laurence Fishburne. Fun fact: he started filming Apocalypse in 1976, the same year the concerned was released. He was 14, having lied about his age to get the gig. But here's the kicker: he was 17 (!) by the time Coppola wrapped production. That's a helluva latter adolescence, what, hanging out with those dudes and running around the Philippines. Less known: Fishburne worked as a bouncer at punk and alternative clubs like Cathay de Grande, Anti-Club, and Mabuhay Gardens (my young environs) AFTER playing Mr. Clean in likely the best war movie ever made. Point? Fishburne rules. Oh, the whole movie is soundtracked by Donald Byrd and the Blackbyrds and just funks the shit out of what is a very heavy storyline. The album cover is an all-timer (the lawyer in the movie also played the lead in the off-Broadway production of no-less than goddamn Genet's The Blacks; is this subtext getting clearer to you??)
Primary difference between the novel and the movie, beyond all of the above (which is interesting but anecdotal bullshit I keep handy for business luncheons and funerals), is there is far less basketball in the novel. This is a good thing. Hog Butcher is tuned to an open chord of loss, tragedy, and just plain sadness the movie, any movie, can't hope to capture. This is a better thing. Resolution feels good walking out of a theater, the Blackbyrds soundtracking your mightily judicious strut. Hog Butcher ends with something far more affective: the barely audible and fading sound of something once beautiful being swallowed into silence.
Get hip: pick up both.
Want to Read
April 5, 2024Cornbread, Earl and Me (1975)
April 21, 2014
In necessity of full disclosure, I work for NUP, which is rereleasing this title in the Spring 2014 season. This is an excellent piece of protest literature. It is sparse, entangled, and electric with the power of speaking truth to the forces that corrupt us. While the book is now fifty years old, it applies so much today to the Chicago that I live and fight for that it is startling to see how long we have supported a system that reviles us.
May 21, 2015
This was one of my favorite books in grade school.
October 10, 2020
I nominate Ronald L. Fair's brilliant 1965 Chicago novel HOG BUTCHER to replace TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD on syllabi everywhere because instead of exceptionalism & white saviors, it depicts systemic racism and how power's highest aim is always to preserve itself and how collective action is the best hope against the system.
"The police walked cautiously to the body, their heads pulsating, their minds cloudy from the excitement, each feeling a false pride to hide his shame, powerful and yet imprisoned by his weapon" (22).
"But what they didn't know was that many of the people in the neighborhood had never seen the sanitation department involved in actual work. They had seen them acting as if they were working, dragging out an hour's work to fill the eight-hour day--playing cards in the cab of the truck, sleeping by a fire hydrant, but not actually working as men worked, as the Negro men had to work every day to earn their week's pay. This most unusual event would be remembered for a long time: the day the city went to work" (29)
"Then he remembered that the police had probably spared very few people in their efforts to restore law and order. His fanciful mind told him the people had fought off the policemen in the district and reinforcements had to be called in. He decided that they could have won, but they didn't want to kill anybody (after all, they weren't like the police) and they had not fought as viciously as the police and in the end they were subdued by superior numbers who were better prepared for combat" (35-36).
"They came to Chicago forty, fifty, years ago like a school of black minnows frantically dashing away from danger; running to the great symbol of freedom up North, where they could be treated almost like human beings [...] They grew weak and mellowed from their success, and their children never developed hearts or shoulders or minds, and were gutless" (73).
"Strangers, all stranges to him, who had been moved by his misfortune; fellow citizens who could never really be counted on, but who also could not be discounted because when they were touched, when they could be truly moved to the point of imagining themselves in similar circumstances, they would respond" (76).
"That was when they were young enough to think that they could erase their past by beautifying the future" (81).
"They hated the politicians they knew because these politicians swore an allegiance to their party first, themselves second, and the people they were duly elected to represent last. THey cursed these politicians because they felt the politicians wanted to keep the black masses not only ignorant, but also grouped tightly together so that the whites who feared the blacks would not have an opportunity to live with them and discover their true worth, and thereby realize that whites and blacks were being pitted against one another" (116-117).
"In the past he had settled for occasional affairs with mature women; but their demands were too great. They wanted too much; too much money, or too much time, or too much of him. They made him work too hard for them and he had begun to feel insecure. His manhood was in danger, and he had resolved to go after someone younger and less experienced; someone that would give his ego a boost and make him a man again" (149).
"Wilford had no idea how easy it had been. He was too young to know how advantageous it was to compromise, or how much grown-ups valued their things, or how little security most people had in this life. He was too young to understand why a man had to protect himself. He was too young to feel a kinship as the audience did. He was too young to feel any adult emotion other than hatred. And now he hated the proprietor as much as he did the policemen. 'You *lie*,' he said out loud" (155).
The entire chapter on p. 160-161 about systemic racism and power is amazing: "The present system is smarter than the people" (160) and "The system has a theory about justice; favors for friends, prosecution for enemies. Favors for those who have, prosecution for those who have not. Favors for whites, prosecution for blacks" (161) and "But there is a rumbling among black youth and those who have not. There is an awakening among the youth that says destroy--destroy all old obsolete systems..." (161).
"We know, Mr. Coroner, that this shooting was not done maliciously. In fact, we're inclined to believe that it was an accident as a result of mistaken identity, but the police force won't have it that way. I don't know why they're afraid of the truth. Their officers aren't being charged with anything, and we don't want them charged. All we're asking for is a fair hearing and it looks like we're not going to get one" (165).
"You wanted to do what was right and I want you to, so you be a man, son. You be a man right here and now and no matter what happens from here on you'll be a man the rest of your natural life" (168).
"He didn't hate the officer any more. It didn't matter what happened now because he had done what he was supposed to do. He had told the truth and even if the officer lied, he knew he had done everything he could" (179).
"Then he looked at Wilford, his face streaked from the tears, his eyes fixed in return on him; he looked at the warm, innocent eyes of a boy who would go on speaking the truth and as a result would be at war with the world for the rest of his life" (180).
"The police walked cautiously to the body, their heads pulsating, their minds cloudy from the excitement, each feeling a false pride to hide his shame, powerful and yet imprisoned by his weapon" (22).
"But what they didn't know was that many of the people in the neighborhood had never seen the sanitation department involved in actual work. They had seen them acting as if they were working, dragging out an hour's work to fill the eight-hour day--playing cards in the cab of the truck, sleeping by a fire hydrant, but not actually working as men worked, as the Negro men had to work every day to earn their week's pay. This most unusual event would be remembered for a long time: the day the city went to work" (29)
"Then he remembered that the police had probably spared very few people in their efforts to restore law and order. His fanciful mind told him the people had fought off the policemen in the district and reinforcements had to be called in. He decided that they could have won, but they didn't want to kill anybody (after all, they weren't like the police) and they had not fought as viciously as the police and in the end they were subdued by superior numbers who were better prepared for combat" (35-36).
"They came to Chicago forty, fifty, years ago like a school of black minnows frantically dashing away from danger; running to the great symbol of freedom up North, where they could be treated almost like human beings [...] They grew weak and mellowed from their success, and their children never developed hearts or shoulders or minds, and were gutless" (73).
"Strangers, all stranges to him, who had been moved by his misfortune; fellow citizens who could never really be counted on, but who also could not be discounted because when they were touched, when they could be truly moved to the point of imagining themselves in similar circumstances, they would respond" (76).
"That was when they were young enough to think that they could erase their past by beautifying the future" (81).
"They hated the politicians they knew because these politicians swore an allegiance to their party first, themselves second, and the people they were duly elected to represent last. THey cursed these politicians because they felt the politicians wanted to keep the black masses not only ignorant, but also grouped tightly together so that the whites who feared the blacks would not have an opportunity to live with them and discover their true worth, and thereby realize that whites and blacks were being pitted against one another" (116-117).
"In the past he had settled for occasional affairs with mature women; but their demands were too great. They wanted too much; too much money, or too much time, or too much of him. They made him work too hard for them and he had begun to feel insecure. His manhood was in danger, and he had resolved to go after someone younger and less experienced; someone that would give his ego a boost and make him a man again" (149).
"Wilford had no idea how easy it had been. He was too young to know how advantageous it was to compromise, or how much grown-ups valued their things, or how little security most people had in this life. He was too young to understand why a man had to protect himself. He was too young to feel a kinship as the audience did. He was too young to feel any adult emotion other than hatred. And now he hated the proprietor as much as he did the policemen. 'You *lie*,' he said out loud" (155).
The entire chapter on p. 160-161 about systemic racism and power is amazing: "The present system is smarter than the people" (160) and "The system has a theory about justice; favors for friends, prosecution for enemies. Favors for those who have, prosecution for those who have not. Favors for whites, prosecution for blacks" (161) and "But there is a rumbling among black youth and those who have not. There is an awakening among the youth that says destroy--destroy all old obsolete systems..." (161).
"We know, Mr. Coroner, that this shooting was not done maliciously. In fact, we're inclined to believe that it was an accident as a result of mistaken identity, but the police force won't have it that way. I don't know why they're afraid of the truth. Their officers aren't being charged with anything, and we don't want them charged. All we're asking for is a fair hearing and it looks like we're not going to get one" (165).
"You wanted to do what was right and I want you to, so you be a man, son. You be a man right here and now and no matter what happens from here on you'll be a man the rest of your natural life" (168).
"He didn't hate the officer any more. It didn't matter what happened now because he had done what he was supposed to do. He had told the truth and even if the officer lied, he knew he had done everything he could" (179).
"Then he looked at Wilford, his face streaked from the tears, his eyes fixed in return on him; he looked at the warm, innocent eyes of a boy who would go on speaking the truth and as a result would be at war with the world for the rest of his life" (180).
April 27, 2025
Not a great novel, far too much boring courtroom stuff. But value buried inside, too. “They didn’t all want to move, but this thing they call Americanism takes guts to practice and they were gutless.”
October 26, 2024
HOG BUTCHER AKA CORNBREAD, EARL, and ME
I saw the movie Cornbread, Earl, and me as a child. I loved the movie, but the book was better. Great story, great read.
I saw the movie Cornbread, Earl, and me as a child. I loved the movie, but the book was better. Great story, great read.
June 10, 2026
I can't believe this was written in 1966. It feels so current. I'd describe it as the bridge between To Kill a Mockingbird and The Hate U Give.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews